AN OPEN LETTER... HEY ISCC - ARE YOU TRYING TO SPREAD COVID-19 OR ARE YOU JUST IGNORANT?

For the last few months all the F Block (consisting of 3 individual "tiers") at the ISCC have cohorted (mingled) in classrooms, crowded hallways - even recreation activities such as playing basketball, lifting weights or just sitting together on a bench or at a table playing cards or talking.

Many F Block prisoners for months have worked at jobs throughout the facility, mingling with staff and inmates from other blocks, preparing and delivering meals for the entire population (including guards), doing laundry and entering other blocks, tiers, even cells to perform maintenance. Inmates from all over the prison are jammed into the waiting room in the medical department, waiting together side-by-side, hip-to-hip for hours to be seen by providers - cohorts be damned.

On September 20, 2021 Tier 3 of F Block was locked down for quarantine due to what a guard described as a prisoner "having symptoms" of COVID-19. Despite the entire tier being on quarantine status, several inmates housed on tier 3 were released to go to work at [non-essential] jobs the next day while the remainder of F 3 remained locked in their cells. Additionally, and what causes even medical staff to scratch their heads, tiers 1 and 2 on F block are not quarantined, and are allowed to move about the facility as usual.

Now, I'm no medical professional, but by my logic, there is either a). no reason to lock down (quarantine) tier 3, or b). all 3 tiers on F block should have been quarantined. Further, allowing even one single inmate housed in a quarantined area to leave that area (in this case, his cell) and move about the facility (no inmate could reasonably have a job that is so essential, and himself be so irreplacable that he is allowed to break quarantine) endangers the entirety of the people in the facility - inmates, staff, visitors - and their families.

In summary, it is apparent that ISCC administrators either haven't thought this through (ignorance) or are intentionally exposing people to COVID-19... there can be no middle ground.

Allowing the ISCC to continue to endanger prisoners and the community is in direct opposition to the scope of responsibility of the Idaho Department of Correction. Knowingly doing so is criminal.

[NOTE: On the morning after (and during) the quarantine lockdown, an F3 prisoner was called to the unit medical examination room. As he left to return to his cell, he was forced to walk through the foyer hallway packed with unmasked prisoners housed on F1 and F2 waiting for "mass-move" - leaving the unit to go to various parts of the prison.]

If you are concerned about this and similar issues, contact your state Senator and/or Representative. You can also contact the Director of the Idaho Department of Correction Josh Tewalt (jtewalt@idoc.idaho.gov) (208) 658-2000.
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